Northern Experience Wildlife Tours

Category: Lindisfarne

  • An icy grip

    I’m resolute in my belief that the winter is an excellent time to visit Northumberland.  It’s relaxing and quiet (not that it’s ever really anything else), there’s a lot of wildlife (ditto) and we often get stunning weather that showcases our remarkable landscape at it’s best.

    Today was a day when everything came together just the way you hope.  As I drove up the A1 Kestrels, Common Buzzards and Roe Deer were all in roadside fields and Redwings and Fieldfares were hedge-hopping from one side of the road to the other.

    I collected Tracey, Guy and Connor (and Ghillie – their collie dog) just after lunch, from their holiday cottage near Belford, and we headed to Holy Island.  The sea by the ends of the causeway was frozen and a sprinkling of snow covered the dunes.  As we crossed towards the island a Merlin flushed from a roadside post and we stopped to admire the beautiful diffused light that illuminated the mudflats.  Our walk on the island was on ground frozen solid, and covered with ice and snow.  The wind was bitingly cold but Grey Seals, Meadow Pipits, Shags, Curlews, Eiders, Red-breasted Mergansers,  Pale-Bellied Brent Geese and flocks of Teal heading towards the mainland all diverted the attention.  As we headed back to the mainland a handsome male Stonechat played hide-and-seek with us along the edge of the causeway, but persistence paid off and Tracey and Guy managed some good shots.  I love having keen photographers on our safaris – especially ones who really appreciate the quality of light that we enjoy up here – so we made several stops as the changing light produced a series of photo opportunities.  I can only hope that we get similar conditions for our first Beginners Photography workshop in January.  The rising tide and fluffy pink clouds of the late afternoon combined with Bamburgh Castle in the snow to offer more memorable images, while we were watching Oystercatchers, Turnstones, Redshanks and a Ringed Plover on the frozen beach.  The route back was made easier by being in a Landrover, and the steady journey allowed us to pick out Brown Hares in the snow-covered fields – seven in total, standing sentinel-like as we approached.  Once I was back on the ice-free A1 and travelling south it was like a different world  to the one I’d been in for the last few hours.  Environmental escapism at it’s best.

  • Seal of approval

    Saturday was scheduled for our “Seal And Seaduck Special”  (sounds like a really bad curry concocted by the Farnes wardens to see them through the ‘hard times’, is in fact a 4 hour NEWT cruise around the Farne Islands and Holy Island).

    The weather forecast hadn’t been particularly promising (that’s not entirely true – it had been promising…heavy rain and howling southeasterlies) but a ‘phone call to William on Friday raised the possibility that we would be able to run the trip.  As we arrived at Seahouses Harbour we could see Glad Tidings VI approaching with the wardens safely on board and their zodiac towed behind.  We had time to welcome David Steel back onto the mainland and then we all boarded and set out into a noticeable swell. 

    The trip had a really good social event feel to it (as all of our pelagic trips tend to do); all three NEWT guides were on board, one of our clients was on her 5th trip with us (this time bringing two of her friends, for a trip they’ll probably never forget – for all the right reasons) and our friends Tim and Vera from Cottingburn House in Morpeth were among the other passengers.  Once we were across at the islands there were a lot of seals, and many of them were ‘singing’ their mournful song; surely the source of many legends of sea-monsters and mermaids.  1347 pups have been born on the islands this year and most of them have departed or moulted out of their cute baby fur already.  A Peregrine Falcon entertained everyone on board as it perched on the Pele Tower on Inner Farne before being pursued towards the Wideopens by a Herring Gull.  The next leg of our journey took us up to Holy Island and several Red-throated Divers flew by and a Great Northern Diver was on the water near Guile Point.  The weather changed at this point and sunlight illuminated Lindisfarne Castle.  We then began a slow run down the coast in search of seaduck.  Flocks of Common Scoter scattered well ahead of our arrival but Sarah managed to get some good images, showing the typical appearance of a flock of flying scoters;

    Common Scoters (Melanitta nigra)
    Common Scoters (Melanitta nigra)
    Common Scoters (Melanitta nigra)
    Common Scoters (Melanitta nigra)

    We also encountered one of the most beautiful birds that winters off Northumberland – Long-tailed Duck.  Camera shy?  These birds made the scoters look like they were hogging the limelight;

    Long-tailed Duck, the 'Stag Light' and St Aidan's Church
    Long-tailed Duck, the 'Stag Light' and St Aidan's Church

    The increasingly choppy seas were making photography frustrating but Sarah stuck gamely to it.  As she was using my camera, and a lens that she wasn’t familiar with, it was even more challenging than pelagic photography usually is.  As we passed by Bamburgh Castle (as impressive from the sea, if not more so, than it is from land) and then Monk’s House the tide turned the last 10 minutes of the cruise into a real experience.  That’s always the point when somebody on board reveals that they usually feel seasick on the boating lake in their local park…

    Nobody was adversely affected by the swell, everyone saw plenty of seals, and the flocks of seaduck flying around us added up to a real winter pelagic treat.  We couldn’t have asked for more from our final journey into the North Sea for 2009.

  • What’s in a name?

    I have recently been dipping into an old book that a friend had given to me when he was having a clear out. The book, published in 1936 is called “Birds of the Wayside and Woodland” and is a fascinating insight into a bygone age and just reading it can transport me back through the decades. It does give a fascinating insight, however, into names and how they have changed. I was particularly reminded of this today when we were travelling down the A19 to take Martin’s grandma out for lunch on her birthday. We passed fields of pheasants, and usually you may not give this colourful game bird a second glance, but look closely and you will see wide variation. These birds, which feature in the Northern Experience logo, are really quite remarkable. Some of the males can be almost black in colour and some have vividly marked neck rings whilst others have none. My book gives some indication as to the reason for this under the entry for Pheasant. It refers to two species: the “Common Pheasant” Phasianus colchicus, introduced into this country centuries ago, and the “Ring-necked Pheasant” Phasianus torquatus introduced more recently. Of course, the pheasants that we see now are a mixture of various species and races and it is impossible to distinguish their ancestry. One of the distinguishing features of all pheasants, the long tail, does mean that the name is given to other species, colloquially, and I was interested to read in my book of “Reed Pheasant” and “Sea Pheasant”. I had never heard of these species before but, turning to the relevant pages, all became clear. They referred to Bearded Tit and Pintail, respectively birds of reed and sea and both with long tails. Whilst Bearded Tit is a rare bird in Northumberland, Pintail can be seen off the Northumberland coast in winter and is a spectacular sight on our Lindisfarne safaris.

    Browsing through the book, I also got to discover some other local and now forgotten names for other bird species, for example ‘Black Curlew’ (Glossy Ibis – a rare visitor to Britain), ‘Common Bunting’ (Corn Bunting – now almost absent from Northumberland) and ‘Blueback’ (Fieldfare – a winter visitor from Scandinavia).